Palazzo del Banco Mediceo

Last updated
Palazzo del Banco Mediceo
Michelozzo e artisti lombardi, portale del banco mediceo a milano, 1450-1500 ca. 01.JPG
Portal of the palace, now in the Castello Sforzesco Collections
Alternative namesBanco Mediceo
General information
StatusDemolished
Type Palace
Architectural style Renaissance
Location Milan, Italy
AddressVia dei Bossi
Construction startedXVth century

The Palazzo del Banco Mediceo or simply Banco Mediceo, was a palace in Milan, the Milanese seat of the Medici's financial exchange activities, known throughout Europe as the Medici Bank. It was one of the earliest examples of Lombard Renaissance architecture.

Contents

History

The palace was located in Via dei Bossi, in the sestiere di Porta Comasina, where the Teatro alla Scala would later be built. The patron was Pigello Portinari, representative of the Medici family in the Sforzesca Milan. The building in some way sanctioned an alliance, which closed centuries of enmity between Milan and Florence, between Francesco Sforza, who in 1455 donated a pre-existing building destined to be transformed into the seat of the Banco and Cosimo de' Medici, who ordered his representative to build a new and representative palace to honour the city of Milan. [1] The work was carried out rapidly and was completed around 1459.

The appearance of the building is known to us from Filarete's treatise, which contains, in addition to some news, an engraving illustrating the main façade that featured innovative elements of the Tuscan Renaissance, combined with more traditional elements of Milanese architectural practice. The palace shows a symmetrical façade with an ashlar base, a monumental portal, a piano nobile with paired windows set on another cornice, crowning the building with an antique-style cornice. The building also had rich decoration, including ceramic roundels placed just below the cornice. The building’s designer is not known with certainty, although the traditional attribution, though without documentary evidence, is that of Michelozzo, [2] a trusted architect of the Medici family. Recently the attribution to Filarete prevails, [3] assisted by local craftsmen. [4] However, Filarete does not attribute the project to himself in the pages of his treatise. [5]

Around 1456, the loggia and rooms were decorated, again according to Filarete, by the greatest Lombard artist of the time, Vincenzo Foppa, with frescoes with an exceptionally profane subject of which only a fragment with Child reading Cicero|Cicero child reading in the Wallace Collection in London has survived. Other frescoes were by Zanetto Bugatto.

The building was demolished at the end of the 18th century during urban development around the teatro alla Scala. A monumental portal remains of it, preserved at the Museo d’arte antica in the Museo d’arte antica, characterised by an overabundant Lombard-Tuscan sculptural decoration by Guiniforte Solari and Giovanni Antonio Amadeo. A number of terracotta tondi with antique portraits can be found in the Pinacoteca del Castello Sforzesco.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vincenzo Foppa</span> Italian painter (c. 1427–1430 – c. 1515–1516)

Vincenzo Foppa was an Italian painter from the Renaissance period. While few of his works survive, he was an esteemed and influential painter during his time and is considered the preeminent leader of the Early Lombard School. He spent his career working for the Sforza family, Dukes of Milan, in Pavia, as well as various other patrons throughout Lombardy and Liguria. He lived and worked in his native Brescia during his later years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Castello Sforzesco</span> Castle in Milan, Italy

The Castello Sforzesco is a medieval fortification located in Milan, Northern Italy. It was built in the 15th century by Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, on the remnants of a 14th-century fortification. Later renovated and enlarged, in the 16th and 17th centuries it was one of the largest citadels in Europe. Extensively rebuilt by Luca Beltrami in 1891–1905, it now houses several of the city's museums and art collections.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palazzo Medici Riccardi</span> Renaissance palace located in Florence, Italy

The Palazzo Medici, also called the Palazzo Medici Riccardi after the later family that acquired and expanded it, is a Renaissance palace located in Florence, Italy. It is the seat of the Metropolitan City of Florence and a museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palazzo Brera</span>

Palazzo Brera or Palazzo di Brera is a monumental palace in Milan, in Lombardy in northern Italy. It was a Jesuit college for two hundred years. It now houses several cultural institutions including the Accademia di Brera, the art academy of the city, and its gallery, the Pinacoteca di Brera; the Orto Botanico di Brera, a botanical garden; an observatory, the Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera; the Istituto Lombardo Accademia di Scienze e Lettere, a learned society; and an important library, the Biblioteca di Brera.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Certosa di Pavia</span> Monastery and complex in Lombardy, Italy

The Certosa di Pavia is a monastery and complex in Lombardy, Northern Italy, situated near a small town of the same name in the Province of Pavia, 8 km (5.0 mi) north of Pavia. Built in 1396–1495, it was once located on the border of a large hunting park belonging to the Visconti family of Milan, of which today only scattered parts remain. It is one of the largest monasteries in Italy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Giuseppe Meda</span> Italian painter

Giuseppe Meda, originally Giuseppe Lomazzo was an Italian painter, architect and hydraulics engineer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Luca Beltrami</span> Italian architect and architectural historian

Luca Beltrami was an Italian architect and architectural historian, known particularly for restoration projects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Portinari Chapel</span>

The Portinari Chapel is a Renaissance chapel at the Basilica of Sant'Eustorgio, Milan, northern Italy. Commenced in 1460 and completed in 1468, it was commissioned by Pigello Portinari as a private sepulchre and to house a silver shrine given by Archbishop Giovanni Visconti in 1340 containing the relic head of St. Peter of Verona, to whom the chapel is consecrated. The architect is unknown, the traditional attribution to Michelozzo having been succeeded with equal uncertainty by attributions to either Filarete or Guiniforte Solari, architect of the apses of the Certosa di Pavia and the church of San Pietro in Gessate in Milan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palazzo Castiglioni (Milan)</span> Historic building in Milan, Italy

Palazzo Castiglioni is an Art Nouveau palace of Milan, northern Italy. It was designed by Giuseppe Sommaruga in the Liberty style and built between 1901 and 1903. The rusticated blocks of the basement imitate a natural rocky shape, while the rest of the decorations are inspired by 18th century stuccos. The building is now used as the seat of the Unione Commercianti di Milano.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palazzo Marino</span>

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Museo d'Arte Antica</span>

The Museo d'Arte Antica is an art museum in the Castello Sforzesco in Milan, in Lombardy in northern Italy. It has a large collection of sculpture from late antiquity and the medieval and Renaissance periods. The various frescoed rooms of the museum house an armoury, a tapestry room, some funerary monuments, Michelangelo's Rondanini Pietà and two medieval portals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neoclassical architecture in Milan</span> Medieval artistic movement

Neoclassical architecture in Milan encompasses the main artistic movement from about 1750 to 1850 in this northern Italian city. From the final years of the reign of Maria Theresa of Austria, through the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy and the European Restoration, Milan was in the forefront of a strong cultural and economic renaissance in which Neoclassicism was the dominant style, creating in Milan some of the most influential works in this style in Italy and across Europe. Notable developments include construction of the Teatro alla Scala, the restyled Royal Palace, and the Brera institutions including the Academy of Fine Arts, the Braidense Library and the Brera Astronomical Observatory. Neoclassicism also led to the development of monumental city gates, new squares and boulevards, as well as public gardens and private mansions. Latterly, two churches, San Tomaso in Terramara and San Carlo al Corso, were completed in Neoclassical style before the period came to an end in the late 1830s.

Angelo Torricelli is an Italian architect.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Santa Maria in Brera</span> Church in Milan, Italy

Santa Maria in Brera was a church in Milan, in Lombardy in northern Italy. It was built by the Humiliati between 1180 and 1229, given a marble façade and Gothic portal by Giovanni di Balduccio in the fourteenth century, and deconsecrated and partly demolished under Napoleonic rule in the early nineteenth century. The Napoleonic rooms of the Pinacoteca di Brera occupy the upper floor of what was the nave.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Outline of Milan</span> Overview of and topical guide to Milan

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Milan:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palazzo Mezzabarba</span> Palace in Pavia, Italy

Palazzo Mezzabarba is a palace in Pavia, Lombardy, a notable example of Lombard rococo, It has been Pavia's city hall since 1875.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palazzo Cornazzani</span> Medieval palace in Italy


Palazzo Cornazzani is a palace in Pavia, in Lombardy, where, between 1895 and 1896, Albert Einstein lived.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palazzo Neroni</span> Palace in Florence, Italy

Palazzo Neroni is a historic building in the centre of Florence, located at via de' Ginori 7, with a rear entrance also at via della Stufa 4r-6r.

References

  1. R. Martinis, Il palazzo del Banco Mediceo: edilizia ed arte della diplomazia a Milano nel XV secolo, in Annali d’architettura, n.15, 2003.
  2. Leonardo Benevolo, Storia dell’architettura del Rinascimento 1973
  3. Luciano Patetta, L’architettura del Quattrocento a Milano, 1987
  4. C. Baroni, Il problema dei Michelozzo a Milano in Atti del IV Congresso internazionale di Storia dell’architettura, Milan, 1939
  5. R. Martinis, Op. cit., 2003.

Bibliography

Italian sources

  • A. M. Finoli e L. Grassi, Filarete 1972 Antonio Averlino detto il Filarete, Trattato di architettura, Polifilo, Milano 1972, pp. 698-704.
  • J. Gritti, «al modo che s’usa oggi dì in Firenze, all’anticha»: il palazzo di Cosimo Medici a Milano, “Annali di architettura”, 30, 2018, pp. 21-44.
  • F. C. Panini, Il libro d’ore di Lorenzo de’ Medici. Volume di commento, Volume 501, Modena, 2005, p. 24.